Rick Santorum: We Need A Federal Constitutional Ban On Gay Marriage

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Monday he wants a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman in all 50 states, less than three weeks after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. “I believe we need a national standard for marriage. I don't think we can have a standard from one state to another on what marriage is,” Santorum told reporters at a breakfast in Washington hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, adding that he wants “to define marriage the way it was defined for 4,000 years of human history.” The remarks put Santorum to the right of rivals such as Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who are pushing a different kind of constitutional amendment that would allow states to decide whether to allow or ban same-sex marriage, rather than an amendment that would set a national standard.

Santorum's position may be news to Bloomberg, but it's not to NOM as last week he became the first 2016 presidential candidate to sign their hate pledge. Here's the very first line: "I pledge to the American people that if elected President, I will support a federal constitutional amendment that protects marriage as the union of one man and one woman." In 2012 every major GOP candidate ended up signing NOM's pledge. It's rather interesting that so far only Santorum has signed the 2016 pledge.